Mark Kurlansky

“People are always asking me what my favorite food is. I say, 'Food that tells me where I am.'”

“When Ozzie Virgil became the first Dominican player in the majors, his nationality was barely noticed. What the press and fans talked about was his skin color. He was the first black player on the Detroit Tigers, and a great deal of attention was paid to him as someone who crossed the color line.”

“I don't do much research on the Internet.”

“You read about these oyster-shucking contests: Somebody did 100 oysters in three minutes, three seconds. I'm lucky if I can open one in three minutes, three seconds.”

“Adults have pretty much made up their minds - they like you to the extent that you confirm what they already believe.”

“I wrote a children's book because children have the most open minds. They are the people who really want to learn.”

“I'd done occasional short stories, but I don't like publishing them in literary magazines; they treat you too much like college boys.”

“People have a lot of strange relationships with food. There's a lot more going on there than just, 'Oh, these crullers remind me of my childhood.' We have a darker and more complex relationship to food.”

“Montserrat is a very pleasant place to do nothing. The islanders know this, and they know this is why tourists go there, but they are not totally comfortable with the notion.”

“Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence.”

“I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.”

“I always wanted to write a book about a common food that becomes a commercial commodity and therefore becomes economically important and therefore becomes politically important and culturally important. That whole process is very interesting to me. And salt seemed to me the best example of that, partly because it's universal.”

“Don't you sense the enormity of your mistake – you invade a country without understanding its music. – Norman Mailer”

“One of the things I am most proud of is refusing to serve in the military when drafted during the Vietnam War.”

“I started writing 'Cod' at a time when people were first beginning to take an interest in the problem of fisheries because the Grand Banks had closed.”

“My most memorable job was on a lobster boat. I was a pretty strong kid, and they just needed someone who could haul pots on 200 ft. of line.”

“I have this whole section in my oyster book where I talk about how New Yorkers have gotten divorced from the sea and completely forget that they live by the sea, and I suggest that this happened when they lost their oysters.”

“For some reason, some kids have a fear of food. Some adults do, too. The best cure for that is to try a lot of different kinds of things. The more you try, the more experiences you have.”

“How you solve your problems are quite different. In non-fiction, you can always go back to the research, whereas in fiction, you have to go back to yourself - which is a little bit scary.”

“In the course of my research, I've read a lot of incredibly bad books - mostly by academics. I'm puzzled as to just why their writing is so terrible. These are smart people, after all.”